


Noise

by ghostadventurespiritorb (LadyScientist)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bleached! Steven Universe, Body Horror, Change Your Mind gone wrong, Digital Art, Episode: s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, F/F, F/M, Forced Gem Fusion, Gem Fusion, Gen, Heavy Angst, Homeworld is Horrible, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated Fic, Inspired by Music, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Major Character Injury, Major character near death, Mind Control, Near Death Experiences, Partial Mind Control, Possession, Song: Noise (Nightwish), contains art, i wrote an original song for this, there's an eventual happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27532276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyScientist/pseuds/ghostadventurespiritorb
Summary: A darting ray, flashing through the chilled air.A pale pink hand, vital, outstretched, reaching through agony.A scream from behind him. The sensation of falling. A shadow falling over him, blurred legs and frantic footsteps.An instinctive desperation but no means to act upon it.Confused exclamations; a chorus of a single voice; an explosion that precedes a cry of pain that comes from far away.Numbing fingers. Shaking, heavy limbs. A sense of lightheadedness. Weak heart thudding in his head.Needing, fading, darkness falling.Silence.
Relationships: Bismuth/Pearl (Steven Universe), Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 46





	1. noise, from a sunless world

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I said I was planning a Change Your Mind gone wrong AU fic? Yeah I actually wasn't referring to this but this is what happened.  
> I have most of the chapters already written, and I'm going to try to have at least a rough illustration for each chapter!  
> The first chapter is short but later chapters will be longer :00
> 
> As of 2/8/21 I'm working on replacing the old art since my style has changed a lot since the story started.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i finally see myself.  
> through the eyes of no one else.  
> it’s so exhausting on this silver screen  
> where i play the role of anyone but me.
> 
> sleeping at last, "three"

A darting ray, flashing through the chilled air.

A pale pink hand, vital, outstretched, reaching through agony.

A scream from behind him. The sensation of falling. A shadow falling over him, blurred legs and frantic footsteps.

An instinctive desperation but no means to act upon it.

Confused exclamations; a chorus of a single voice; an explosion that precedes a cry of pain that comes from far away.

Numbing fingers. Shaking, heavy limbs. A sense of lightheadedness. Weak heart thudding in his head.

Needing, fading, darkness falling.

  
Silence.


	2. noise, to decoy the human voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> noise  
> from a sunless world  
> your mirror is black   
> only a copy stares back  
> at a slave of brave new world
> 
> nightwish, "noise"

It’s the way the other half stares,  _ screams, _ that freezes her in her tracks, wide eyed and frightened, that sends her to her knees in a shockwave of sound. And that’s all  _ before _ his shield failed.

She’d been carrying him, desperate, with the knowledge that he was dying pressing as a second weight on her shoulders, refusing to worry about the ability of the  _ display of raw power before her _ to protect himself.

He’s already blocked several assaults of light, leaving her confident in him and concerned only with the declining counterpart in her arms.

Once again, she watches him refuse to heed to her will, two diamonds on opposite scales but both with tremendous strength. But White Diamond commands the others, shifting like marionettes, channelling herself through their eyes. The dome he moves his arms to summon doesn’t draw its faces over his head in time. He is blasted to the shining ground, shaking,  _ smoking _ , as the color is leached away, forcibly bleached, pink vanishing beneath a blinding aura.

She knows there’s nothing she can do to stop its effects, nothing to prevent the inevitable disaster. She struggles not to let the shock and helplessness cause her to lose her grip on the dying boy, but gives into the shuddering dread and lowers him to the polished gray floor as gently as her shaking arms allow. The quietest whimper at the sudden motion assures her that he’s at least still alive before she runs over to the other half as he rises in monochrome.

If his so Steven-like face was terrifying as he spoke in a monotone, thousand-yard stare always straight ahead, it was worse a hundredfold with a mimic of White Diamond’s awfully false smile plastered over where Steven’s kind features should’ve been.

She approaches him nevertheless, shedding any fear of what White Diamond’s control would mean for Steven, but she freezes as he raises arms that aren’t his own anymore, folding an origami dome over him. She moves to run back to the vulnerable human half lying prone as the panes stud themselves with spikes, but is caught helpless when he sends the bubble wide, a physical shockwave slamming against her body. She is sent skidding backwards, knocked to the ground with a thud by an explosion of light and painful sound, and forces blurred vision and drifting twin copies of the scene to clear. Warm blood blossoms from a number of fresh wounds and abrasions left by the shield and hard light shrapnel as she crawls back to Steven’s human counterpart.

He’s unconscious, breathing uneven and shallow, but he’s breathing at least, and the explosion seems to have spared him.

None of her injuries seem particularly deep or serious, so she pulls herself to her feet, trying to figure out how to get Steven away from this place. That’s when she sees the other puppeted gems stepping forward, summoning grayed-out weapons.


	3. your mirror is black (only a copy stares back)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i remember you couldn't stop crying  
> you found me when you thought i was dying  
> believe me when i say  
> i tried to hard to change
> 
> girl in red, "rue"

Pearl is the first to step forward, drawing her spear on Connie just like she’d done when Connie had first stepped foot in White’s ship, only this time, Connie doesn’t have her sword. Pearl is moving towards Steven’s unconscious body. Connie doesn’t hesitate before stepping in her path, scanning the floor for her sword and spotting it lying too far away. She knows Steven will hate her for what she’s doing. 

He doesn’t want her throwing herself in harm’s way for him. She stopped talking to him after he sacrificed himself. But she’s doing this either way.

Pearl swings her blade, and it takes a moment for the stinging pain in her upper arm to register. She stumbles back, pushing herself up against Steven, not letting White Diamond use Pearl to hurt him. Turning away from Pearl, she wraps her arms around Steven, ignoring the blood spreading across his shirt from the motion.

Pearl strikes, again and again, but Connie just lies there, body shaking with sobs, holding on to Steven for dear life.

Finally, from above, she hears the cries of Lapis, Bismuth, and Peridot.

Bismuth shouts something, causing White Diamond – and all the gems her power holds – to look up. Connie takes the moment to push herself to her elbows, and sits up, pulling Steven into her lap. 

The armoured gem lands on the floor of the ship, staring into what should’ve been Pearl’s blue eyes.

“So Pink’s little gems are here to save the day. How quaint of them to think that there’s anything you can do to help your friends.” The smooth voice comes from every gem in the room, even Steven’s other half and Pearl. “We feel so much better now that she’s allowed us to be ourselves,” echoes her voice as she speaks for the gems.

“What? No, I don’t understand! Pearl! What did she do to you?” shouts Bismuth, glancing around at the controlled gems, and White Diamond, above it all, watching through silver-lidded eyes.

“I’ve only helped her become her best self,” says White, like a ventriloquist through a dummy.

Bismuth hears a cry from behind her and whips around to see Peridot and Lapis standing on each side of Connie and Steven, facing off against Garnet and Amethyst.

Connie stares up at Garnet and Amethyst, clutching Steven to her chest. White’s light lends them sharp shadows that are cast over her body, giving them a greater sense of power and height. The air is filled with the scent of ozone and ice and the contrast of light and shadow is increased. Connie has no time to shout a warning. The light comes as fast and sudden as ever, flaring from the gems’ eyes. Lapis spins around, knocking Peridot to the side with a wing, and all Connie can hear as she is completely enveloped in light is Lapis’s scream of pain, abruptly cut off as she falls to the ground, her colors leached away.

Peridot’s eyes are wide, panicked, full of fear. She pushes herself to her feet and stares at Lapis lying motionless on the ground, and tears well up behind her visor. 

Bismuth meets her eyes, her own gaze set with the determination of a soldier who the war has only just ended for. “We gotta get them out of here!”

At Peridot’s nod, she rushes forward, elbowing Amethyst to the side and scooping Steven and Connie into her arms. She kneels, allowing the shorter gem to climb onto her shoulders, and she runs to the ship’s eye. It’s a long way to the ground of Homeworld, far below, somewhere in darkness, but Bismuth glances back to see that White has forced Blue and Yellow to the opening, where they ready their powers in a blaze of white. Peridot raises her arms, and Bismuth’s armor shifts, making her feel lighter on her feet. As the light behind grows blinding, she faces forward and takes the leap.


	4. at a slave of brave new world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> go ahead and laugh  
> even if it hurts  
> go ahead and pull the pin  
> what if we could risk  
> everything we have  
> and just let our walls cave in 
> 
> sleeping at last, “heart”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is, after almost a month: chapter 4! i'm sorry the wait was so long aaa i haven't had a lot of free time!

There was a faint wind howling in the catacombs. It whistled over dry earth and dark stone. Bismuth trekked across the uneven gravel, followed by Peridot and Connie. Steven rested in her arms, barely conscious but more aware than he’d been back in the ship. They searched for any sort of sheltered spot, a place to rest in these ancient, forgotten caves.

Finally, slipping through a narrow crack of a tunnel, the passage opened up, and the broken group found their way into a kindergarten that arched overhead. In a larger exit hole, they were able to set up a small makeshift camp in the dim grey light.

Leaning against the smooth stone, Connie glanced nervously at where Steven was sleeping. His eyebrows were scrunched up as if he were in pain, and the dark circles under his eyes against his pale skin made him resemble a corpse. It was uncanny and frightening, and reminded her far too much of the potential near future. She reached into her pocket, feeling around in case there was another protein bar in the depths of her jacket. She thought they’d eaten them all during the days they spent locked in the tower, but she held onto the hope.

(the pocket was empty.)

With Peridot’s help, Connie was able to tear strips of cloth off her already-damaged shirt and tie makeshift bandages over the worst of her injuries. She wished there was something she could do for Steven, lying there sick and injured. With no leads for solutions to his condition, there was nothing they could do except wait for him to wake.

Bismuth was leaning against a cracked cliff, staring up at where the stone arched above, as though she expected it to cave in or start crawling with enemy gems at any moment.

Peridot sat on the rim of the hole, swinging her legs as she looked forlornly out towards the surface.

“Peridot,” Connie said, making her jump and turn around. “If we’re going to be down here for every long, we’re going to need food. I think my pack is still in the palace…”

Pushing herself up, Peridot stepped into the open. “Using some of this scrap metal here, I should be able to scout up at the surface and potentially retrieve some supplies from above.”

Looking at her, Bismuth flashed a smile. “You _show_ those upper-crusts what they’re up against.”

Peridot kicked over the torn metal, where it stirred up some brown-gray dirt, and climbed on. It floated, bobbing a little, just above the ground. “Do you want to stay and guard camp, or get our hands on those _clods_ that hurt Lapis?”

Bismuth paused. “Pearl…” she muttered. She looked up. “I’ll come. But remember, this is a _scouting_ mission.”

From Steven’s side, Connie watched Bismuth grip the edge of the metal as Peridot soared away.

She was nervous to leave Steven’s side, but she couldn’t just watch him suffer with no way to alleviate him. So in the dusky light, she walked out into the space of the cave. It was odd, she thought, for the debris here to look so fresh, the broken rock with surfaces yet to build up the millennia of dust that coated the cliffs, the torn metal unrusted and shining. On earth, she’d blame the weather, but the crisply dry air and lack of wind in the cave told a different story. It wasn’t until she noticed the flaky red patches smeared high on the cliff and lower on the ground that she put it together.

Months ago, not long after Steven had first returned from Homeworld after the disastrous trial, he’d finally told the gems – and Connie – what had happened there, how he’d gotten back. This must be the same spot where Lars died, she realized with a chill. That placed them directly almost under the building where the trial had occurred. Suddenly uncomfortable out in the open, Connie walked back to the exit hole. He stirred as she returned to her place by his side, and her eyes shone with hope as his eyes groggily opened a crack.

* * *

Steven didn’t remember much of the journey through the depths of Homeworld, which probably wasn’t a bad thing. What he did remember was the agony of every falling footstep jarring his weakened human body, the panicked feeling somewhere deep within him telling him to rush back to his gem, an unending dread when he was too weak to move within Bismuth’s armoured arms. 

The arrival to the calm, dark cave was welcomed, and he was too exhausted to care about how much the hard stone hurt his body. Surely, closing his eyes for one second wouldn’t hurt, and-

He blinked.

The lighting was somewhat different, dimmer perhaps. There was no clear day-night cycle with the lights of Homeworld’s metropolis, but the light still altered faintly as the ruined planet turned on its axis. Deep in the old chambers and tunnels, the light that filtered down was shifted in its paths, the subtle alterations casting new shadows. Connie was by his side, anxiously comforting him in the dark. He ignored his pain for her touch, letting her words send him to sleep. He closed his eyes, grateful for the still and silence, and let oblivion take him.

He felt movement, his aching body jostled as Connie sat beside him, having returned to their little cave. He groaned, and her gaze rapidly shifted to his face, mouthing an apology.

He forced his eyes to open, and saw that the light had changed again.

“St-teven?” she said, a hand reaching for his shoulder. “Are you feeling okay? Are you comfortable? Are you hurting?”

His body felt like pounded lead, too tired and heavy to move, and there was a horribly sharp pain in his stomach where his gem should’ve been. His head throbbed and his skin burned, but he managed to mumble out “m’fine” despite the agony that gripped his chest. He immediately disproved his claim when the attempt to speak left him coughing up blood. Opening teary eyes after his coughing fit, he could see Connie at his side, deep concern for him clearly on her face.

“Steven!” she exclaimed, wiping the tears away from his bloodshot eyes. “You, uh, just try to sleep, I guess. I–I’ll stay with you.”

He closed his eyes, feeling Connie’s warmth against his back. He’d shiver if he wasn’t so completely exhausted. Sleep would be a relief, he knew, if he could just ignore the pain long enough to actually _reach_ it. Despite the aching, though, he found himself drifting off. He accepted the darkness gladly, and as he slipped into sleep, he heard Connie whisper from his side.

“I’m here, I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can do angst all day, but writing characters being heterosexual is my greatest weakness. i'll add art as soon as i get the chance, i just wanted to get this posted so i don't keep y'all waiting any longer!


	5. paranoiac, insomniac, endless noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> invisible machinery,  
> these moving parts inside of me  
> well, they’ve been shutting down for quite some time,  
> leaving only rust behind 
> 
> sleeping at last, “touch”

“White Diamond still has the gems up in her head,” said Peridot, climbing off the scrap metal. “No one seems to have noticed the diamonds missing yet. It should be a straight shot through the palace to Pink’s room and the backpacks.”

“So will you be getting the supplies now?” asked Connie, who’d been awake by the time the gems returned from scouting.

“We were gonna be going right as soon as we let you know what was going on above,” Bismuth said. “We’ll probably head out right now.”

Connie smiled a little at the fact that she and Steven would soon have supplies as she nodded to the two gems. “Well, good luck, then!”

With that, Peridot lifted the scrap of metal again, Bismuth hanging from the bottom as before. It wasn’t nearly as effective as the trash can lid Peridot had once piloted, but that had been lost in the disastrous rescue attempt in White’s head ship. 

She stood outside the little cave-like exit hole where she and Steven had found shelter and craned her neck as Bismuth and Peridot soared away into the dry fog. She stayed there long past they were out of sight, lost in thought, before she snapped back to reality and crawled back into the shelter of the hole.

* * *

Steven certainly looked worse. His hair was matted and greasy, his skin with a sickly pallor, his eyes sunken with deep dark circles under them.

He whimpered slightly as Connie settled beside him. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s just me,” she assured him as he struggled to move, to wake. She’d seen how much pain he’d been in the last time he’d woken up, she didn’t want that to happen again. Carefully, so not to disturb the bandage on her upper arm, Connie pulled off her bloodstained jacket and rolled it up to create a pillow under Steven’s head.

Looking at the pale silhouette outlined by the edge of this exit hole that had been shaped by a gem emerging countless millennia ago, gently laying a hand across Steven’s chest to feel his breathing, Connie began to sing. Her voice was faltering at first, but strengthened as she continued.

“Living in hiding, / a candle burning low, / alone with no chance to be free. / I’d like to be alone with you, / and I’d know you’d like that too, / but this isn’t right for me. / I don’t want you to die, / I don’t wanna see you lying there, / pulled away, / I don’t want this for you. / I don’t want to think about what’s happening to you / and what you’re going through, / I don’t want this for you. / But it’s just a thought. / It’s just a thought. / I’d rather us be free, free, free… / free, free, free / from here…”

A tear dripped from her chin and she sighed.

“Hang in there, Steven,” she said, sight lingering on his face for a moment.

She found herself leaning against the smooth wall of the exit hole, not looking at anything in particular but unable to sleep.

* * *

Connie was pulled out of her daze by Bismuth and Peridot’s return. She ran up to them as they landed, Bismuth passing her both the hot dog and cheeseburger backpacks while Peridot allowed the scrap of metal she was controlling to settle. Connie noticed that the metal was clearly different from that which was scattered around the cave, but thought nothing of it until Peridot broke the news. 

“Those clods know we’re here now. We need to find a safe place.”

“They’ll be following us any minute, we have to get moving,” added Bismuth.

Connie scrambled to her feet so quickly, she almost forgot about the overhangs shaped by the shoulders of the ancient gem who’d emerged here and nearly hit her head.

“O-okay, let’s go,” she said.

Once again, Bismuth carried Steven, who seemed to be intermittently conscious. Connie took the lead, her own backpack on her back, while Peridot drifted behind on the metal that she must’ve had to find after losing yet another craft during a skirmish on the surface. They’d had to poof several gems while escaping the palace, which now floated in bubbles in their old hiding spot. Peridot carried Steven’s cheeseburger backpack, the three well enough to walk moving with much more urgency than before. Climbing through crevices, slipping through holes, running across open gravelly ground, they made their way as far through Homeworld’s depths as they could. 

Connie was only paying attention to moving forwards, giving little thought to where her feet fell. And suddenly, she found herself taking a step that didn’t find ground beneath it. She felt Bismuth rapidly shift her hold on Steven and catch the back of her shirt, and looked down to see a few pieces of gray-brown stone fall away into the incredible depths of the chasm that split the entire planet in two.

Regaining her balance, she stepped a safe distance back and just _stared_ across the gap for a few seconds. She _thought_ she could make out the far side of the scar if she strained her vision as hard as she could.

She was about to suggest turning back to find a place, but Bismuth stopped her.

“We go down.”

Rather than attempt to climb into the abyss, Peridot again used Bismuth’s armor to allow her to practically fly. They were surely a funny and strange sight, the armored bismuth floating through the vastness of the great chasm like a dust mote in a sunbeam, two humans and a peridot with no limb enhancers clinging to her.

On the side of the cliff, Connie spotted what looked like the entrance to a cave system, and Peridot brought them over to it. After a brief discussion about whether this would work as a longer-term shelter than the ancient kindergarten, it was decided that Bismuth and Peridot would continue looking, as well as making sure they’d made it away without being followed. Connie would stay in the cave and see if she could get Steven to eat, and once again wait for them to return.

* * *

Steven felt someone shaking his shoulder, stirring him back to consciousness. The ground beneath him felt softer, fine dirt rather than hard stone. The darkness was comforting to his eyes once he opened them. He couldn’t ignore the pounding in his head any longer, however, almost nauseous simply from the pain. A blurry shape moved over him, her edges fringed in a glow. He whimpered ( _stars, he’s pitiful!_ ) as Connie continued to shake him, saying his name gently.

She realized he was awake, and carefully helped him move into an upright position. Truth be told, she wasn’t really helping him so much as doing it for him. He could hardly feel his limbs at all except for pins and needles in his fingers and toes. That’s a relief, he supposed, if the pain in the rest of his body was anything to judge by. Despite the fact that he _knew_ there wasn’t anything _really, physically_ there, his brain insists on the fact that there really is a wound where his gem once set. What else could explain the utter agony, the stabbing pain in every moment?

Connie was trying to get him to drink from a plastic water bottle she was holding. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the liquid met his cracked lips. He drank deeply. The water cools his raw throat, and it takes him a while to catch his breath when he’s done.

Connie offered him food, too, but quickly found he couldn't keep anything down. Steven felt bad for wasting all that water that Connie could’ve had for herself, but she seemed to guess what he was thinking and told him not to worry. She moved him away so he wouldn’t roll into his own sick and let him drink again to clear the taste from the mouth and recapped the bottle before shifting him to lay him down slowly. He found himself drifting back to the numbness of sleep. He gladly took it.

* * *

Connie was relieved when Steven woke up relatively quickly, eagerly drinking nearly half of the water from the bottle she offered him. Food didn’t go so easily, however, as he immediately emptied his stomach to the cave floor. Rather than try to clean up the mess, she simply dragged Steven, the bags, and herself a few feet along the wall. After letting him drink again, she laid him back down. He quickly fell back asleep.

Connie stared at the blurry purple light that cascaded into the jagged mouth of the cave. Growing tired (it had been a long day, she had to admit, from Bismuth and Peridot leaving for supplies that morning to the long journey through the kindergartens and fallen statues), she took her spot beside him and let herself fall asleep.

* * *

Connie awoke sometime later with the distinct feeling that something was _very_ wrong. She turned to check on Steven.

He wasn’t breathing.

Her own breath hitched in her throat. For a moment, their times together flashed before her eyes, a story building, unfolding, collapsing in a second.

No.

No, she told herself.

He was _not_ dying on her watch. 

She was already at his side.

One hand out, the other on top, like her mother had taught her. Hands on his sternum.

_Pump._

Waves washing in and out, a glow fading, revealing something entirely new.

 _Pump._

The clash of metal on metal, _parry, thrust, parry, thrust._

_Pump._

She taps her foot to remind her of her tempo as her bow glides over the strings on her violin.

_Pump._

She knows rhythm. 

Knows it in the ocean she’s spent so much time by.

Knows it in the sword fighting techniques drilled into her muscle memory by Pearl.

Knows it in the music she still loves, even as a fighter.

And by this entire god-forsaken planet that seemed absolutely hell-bent on killing her and everyone she loved, if she couldn’t find that rhythm in her best friend’s chest, then…

Then she’d never get to say–

“I– I love you, St-Steven!” she finally cried, only then realizing that she was sobbing, stopping her intentional pushes to simply _pound_ on his chest in desperation, when he sputtered, coughed, raggedly breathed in, and _oh, he was alive, he might make it a little longer._

And for a moment, he seemed awake, lucidity behind his eyes. He was looking around, that starry eyed look of his despite his confusion.

“You do?” he said weakly, shakily. “I mean, I do to, but–” 

He didn’t finish, because on some crazy impulse she’d never be able to explain, she bent down and kissed him. She felt the instinct to fuse, that feeling like her mind was reaching out to his, but this time only finding darkness, nothingness, death. She pulled back quickly, and the feeling was gone. 

“Connie?” he said, even more quietly.

“Mhm?”

“I’m gonna be okay, right?” His words were slurred by no fault of his own, although laced with doubt and fear. Connie pulled him into her lap comfortingly.

When she looked down, he was unconscious again. It took her a moment to notice that his chest was indeed gently, subtly, _too slightly_ rising and falling.

“You’re going to be just fine,” she lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter.  
> this freaking chapter.  
> was supposed to be. idk. 1000 words.  
> but no, i had so many ideas. and it is almost twice that. so far every single chapter has doubled the length of this fic, and i guess this chapter continued that pattern.
> 
> On an actually more serious note, I'd just like to apologize for how long this chapter took?? I wrote most of it in the past few days, there was no reason at all that it should have taken almost 2 months. (The last chapter was on December 4, it's February now. Sorry hhh!!)  
> As a reward for your long wait, I'll be redrawing the old art from the previous chapters, adding more, and, best of all, the next three chapters are already written, with another nearly done! Thank you to all my readers, especially those with the patience to keep waiting!
> 
> The CPR scene was paralleled after a similar scene in the Stranger Things season 1 finale.  
> The song featured in this chapter was written by me, although it contains numerous references and motifs from canon songs. I have a melody for it, although it's mainly based off of those songs.  
> There a lot of moments in this chapter I still feel uncertain about, but right now, I'm just happy to have it done!
> 
> Comments, bookmarks, and kudos are all highly appreciated, and feel free to sub to this story to get a first read on future chapters! I'll be releasing the next ones over the next few days, so get ready!
> 
> I'll also use this moment to shamelessly advertise my good friend and mutual beta reader [Fullmusicbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmusicbard), an amazing writer and person! Go check out her fics right now, _Heir of the Flowers_ is a great read!


	6. (on the edge of the human horizon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fair winds my love  
> fly towards the calm  
> fly utterly lost  
> towards a beating heart 
> 
> nightwish, “how’s the heart”

There’s a shift in Steven after that day. He’s unresponsive, heart hardly beating, not even a will to keep him going. And finally, sadly, desperately, Connie proposes what they know they’d been avoiding. What they know has been  **her** goal all along. 

Taking Steven’s pale, limp hand into hers, she looks at their faces.

Bismuth is resigned to this, wishing it hadn’t been forced upon them by her marble hand.

Peridot’s eyes are still dulled from grief, with Lapis still held by White Diamond, her greatest fear come true.

Connie begins to speak, subconsciously squeezing Steven’s palm. “There’s no way around this now. He’s going to  _ die _ if we don’t give in. We need to take him back to his gem.”

Bismuth grimaces. Peridot gains a look that suggests a theory for what would occur from a potential fusion with that bleached  _ him _ .

They prepare for the journey back to the surface. They decide it’s safer if only one gem goes, and as much as Peridot doesn’t want to see Lapis like this, she has no choice as the only one with the power to carry them back to the ship. They find a new piece of metal, a more practical vehicle than the scrap Peridot had salvaged during the disastrous supply run, and Connie waves goodbye to Bismuth back on the stark ground as they float away. 

Peridot decides to wait in the tunnel that leads through the ship’s eye while Connie slips down the inner wall with Steven in her arms.

White is still standing perfectly on her pedestal, arms still outstretched, eyelashes closed in her eternal false peace.

“I’m here! I have him! What do you want?” shouts Connie, thinking a silent apology as she drops him unceremoniously to the ground as if to show White Diamond, _“look, I don’t care, I won’t fight, don’t hurt us.”_

White Diamond lazily blinks open one massive eye at a time, and Connie realizes how the stillness and scale of the rest of her body makes her look more like a statue, something static, than an actual gem.

“So your little pet has brought your other half back. Isn’t that sweet of it?” she says, pretending to talk to the grayscale twin clenched in her power’s grasp despite his lack of thought, of feeling, of freedom, of anything that’s him.

Connie swallows the lump in her throat and exhales her anger, playing the part.

“Please, you have to let him fuse with his gem, or whatever it is he needs to stay alive. You… you can have him back, whatever you want.”

“Very well,” says White Diamond, a smile that’s almost a smirk on the contrast of her black lips. She reaches forward with her clawed hand to snatch away Connie’s best friend, and once again, there’s nothing she can do. She scrambles backwards, not wanting to be caught in those swordlike nails. This is almost how it had happened, before, what led to this disaster. Tears paint her cheeks as he is carried away to the other side of the room. To where the gems stand with their faces blankly smiling. Where White Diamond drops him into his bleached clone’s arms. Where the gem dances with what might as well be his other half’s corpse. There is a glow of light, rough and sharp and not the fluid joy that fusion should be. It fades, flickering in a way that’s wrong, and Connie stares into the terrified eyes of Steven in a twisted body that cannot scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TO BE CONTINUED...
> 
> and here we are, at the chapter that started this entire au!  
> i've had this written since the very beginning, so i may as well post it now!  
> the context has since changed, but steven fusing with his bleached gem has been something planned since the first concepts for this story!  
> i can't write white to save my life, so i'm sorry if she seems completely out of character!  
> i literally die when anyone comments on my fics, so please, if you like this fic, have theories, or would like to provide one of the coveted line-by-line reaction-analysis comments, please feel free to do so! kudos are appreciated as well, thank you to anyone who enjoys my work!


	7. (something terrifying sleeps)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> think of these thoughts as limitless light  
> exposing closing circuitry of fright  
> think of each moment holding this breath  
> as death minute in decimal 
> 
> miracle musical, “the mind electric”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be read in combination with chapter 6.

There is nothing, and then there is light. It felt not unlike how it had felt when she’d first cleaved him in two, tearing him into two halves destined not to meet again.

But this awakening is different. He is not in the arms of his best friend, her desperate cries calling him back to consciousness. This is fusion, and it feels _so wrong_.

Because it’s not just him, he realizes. His gem is bleached, made flawless for White’s vision, and the attempt to fuse is tearing his cells apart at the seams.

He cannot scream. He cannot move. He cannot breathe. But this feels like how being torn apart felt, only a hundred times worse. Because this shouldn’t be possible. He’s fully organic, all of a sudden, trying to fuse with something of no relation to him. This is _not_ fusion, an _experience_ , an amalgam of two forms. This is everything that being shattered is. He doesn’t exist. He is simply flesh blended, melded, with hard light, an endless cycle of broken pain.

Through another pair of eyes, like looking through a pair of binoculars backwards so that the world is far away, he sees Connie kneeling on the ground, looking towards him with tears in her eyes.

He was separated for so long, torn so far apart, they may as well be shards. Each half is next to dead – one stripped of color and whatever small amount of emotion that lived in him, one weakened and left to languish – and together they are something far worse.

By all means and logic, he should’ve passed out by now simply from the pain, but the gem that gives him strength now forces him to awareness as his mind refuses to follow. He sees an arm that feels twisted, a gnarled branch to his mind’s inner sense of space, but outwardly is simply the same smooth bright gray as the rest of him, as it raises into his field of vision, and what is left of him sinks in dread as he sees Connie’s eyes widen, as the light and shadows grow harsher, as each gem’s bleached mind sets on her and White’s power is projected through their eyes.

There is a scream. He cannot hear it, but he still knows it happened. His field of vision is blinding white, and he cannot see anything beyond the light. His sight clears, and Connie is shaking and panting. And White Diamond’s voice comes from his own mouth.

“My flawlessness cannot be projected to Pink’s little pet? Well, I do suppose that now it’ll be able to see my Starlight with all her impurities washed away.”

The sound echoes as it comes from all sides and corners. Ignoring White Diamond’s words, Connie is able to climb to her feet and limp away to where a small green figure helps pull her into the exit tunnel.

And he is alone.

(Except he isn’t. He is not one person, and he is not two people, but he is not a fusion.)

And he is broken.

And he is shattered.


	8. a parasite needs a host

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> looking in your eyes, i'm coming home  
> just get away from me, please just stop touching me  
> you're always trying to be somebody else  
> now i realize i'm not alone 
> 
> evelyn evelyn, “evelyn, evelyn”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ran out of "noise" lyrics to use for chapter titles so from now on they'll just be from the song in the summary hhh
> 
> sorry for the short chapter, we'll be seeing what connie and the others are up to soon!

He wants to scream.

He wants to be _free_ of this twisted body.

He finds that when the part of his mind that he still can call _his_ doesn’t send the same signals to his fragmented limbs as White Diamond commands of his gem, things start to _tear_. Luckily, the occasions on which she forces him to move are rare. He just stands at her feet, arms outstretched, a puppet like all the others.

It really just feels like she’s waiting– he can’t possibly think _what for_. 

He hates to say it, but he somehow longs for those endless dark days in the catacombs. Sure, each waking moment was nearly as agonizing as his, but at least he’d spend most of that time unconscious.

The worst of it is that he almost feels like _something_ is eating away at his mind, that each moment he’s a little less _him_. He’s really stopped thinking about his body, because it’ll hurt no matter what. But where his gem is in his stomach, there’s a constant buzzing, the kind of vibration that shakes the fluid deep in your ears. It sounds like it’s whispering to him, a honeyed voice murmuring to him. And soon he realizes: it isn’t just White Diamond’s voice, although hers is by far the most overpowering. The Diamonds are loudest, and the Crystal Gems too, he realizes, even Lapis. And, although so faint under the others that he can barely hear it, there’s another voice, a voice he doesn’t know. No matter how hard he tries to focus past the pain, however, he can’t make out a single meaningful word from any one of the controlled gems. White Diamond’s voice, however, is loud and clear, full sentences of thought enunciated but immediately forgotten by his shattered mind. 

He can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t _forgetting_ the phrases but rather _absorbing_ them, taking in each of her words subconsciously, _changing him_.

If White Diamond wishes to wait, then so will he.

He tells himself that that’s his choice, that he’s waiting to be saved, even if being pulled away again would mean death. He wants this to end, to be over.

But for now, he'll just wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my beta reader [fullmusicbard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmusicbard)'s only reaction to this chapter was  
> "NO NO NOOOO what the f--- what the f--- oh no" so idk if it's actually good. also, thanks to her for a conversation on the topic of how to make bleached!steven extra terrifying.
> 
> art has been added to chapter 5!

**Author's Note:**

> I consume comments for power.
> 
> Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are all appreciated! Feel free to sub to this fic since the updates are pretty all over the place!


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